Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was off to a historic start in his NFL career through nine weeks. That pace has slowed in recent weeks for a variety of reasons, but Daniels looked more like himself in Sunday’s 34-26 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
While the offense was slow to get going, Daniels came alive in the fourth quarter, leading the Commanders to two quick scoring drives in the final minutes, including an 86-yard touchdown to Terry McLaurin. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, as Washington missed the extra point and a chance at overtime.
Aside from how he finished the game, Daniels looked much more confident as a runner for the first time in several weeks, leading the Commanders with 74 rushing yards. After injuring his ribs in Week 7, Daniels hadn’t been as effective running the ball, whether due to his injury or defenses taking that element of his game away.
How does Daniels measure up to other NFL quarterbacks? We look at ESPN’s Total QBR metric, which differs from the traditional QB rating. Here’s how ESPN defines QBR:
ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating (Total QBR), which was released in 2011, has never claimed to be perfect, but unlike other measures of quarterback performance, it incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties. Also, since QBR is built from the play level, it accounts for a team’s level of success or failure on every play to provide the proper context and then allocates credit to the quarterback and his teammate to produce a clearer measure of quarterback efficiency.
Let’s look at how Daniels compares to other rookie QBs, including Bo Nix, who has been catching up to Daniels in the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year race.
NFL QBs ranked by Total QBR after Week 11
- Lamar Jackson: 75.9
- Joe Burrow: 75.6
- Josh Allen: 73.2
- Kyler Murray: 72.5
- Brock Purdy: 67.6
- Patrick Mahomes: 66.8
- Jameis Winston: 66.7
- Jayden Daniels: 66.5
- Jalen Hurts: 63.7
- Matthew Stafford: 62.4
- Trevor Lawrence: 61.8
- Derek Carr: 61.7
- Tua Tagovailoa: 60.0
- Sam Darnold: 59.4
- Baker Mayfield: 59.3
- Jordan Love: 58.4
- Justin Herbert: 58.1
- Jared Goff: 57.7
- Drake Maye: 57.7
- Kirk Cousins: 56.8
- Bo Nix: 55.9
- Geno Smith: 54.6
- Justin Fields: 51.5
- Aaron Rodgers: 51.4
- C.J. Stroud: 51.3
- Caleb Williams: 48.9
- Dak Prescott: 46.4
- Daniel Jones: 46.3
- Anthony Richardson: 38.4
- Gardner Minshew: 36.4
- Will Levis: 36.4
- Bryce Young: 35.8